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Japan and Child Prostitution
First Published: Reflections - Philippine Daily Inquirer Publication Date: 11th May 1994 Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC Tokyo: I am in Japan as part of an educational and awareness building campaign organized with by a Japanese Non-Government Organization that is a part of the ECPAT movement. ECPAT - End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism is a coalition of more than 300 organizations determined to stop the child prostitution. ECPAT was begun in 1991 by Rev. Ron O'Grady a pastor from Aoatearoa ( New Zealand) and has spread to 20 countries . The reports about the growing number of child prostitutes has frequently been met by skepticism and denial. The critics claim that reports are exaggerated, sensational and they say campaigners are making mountains out of molehills. But years ago denial too met claims of an epidemic of drug abuse, AIDS and environmental destruction. The joint UNICEF and Philippine Government 1992 report on the situation of children and women in the Philippines quotes the 1986 estimate by NGO's as 20,000 children being sexually exploited and the 1992 figure is now at 40,000 and this does not include children sexually abused in the home. An recent ECPAT survey of child prostitutes in Cebu claims that child prostitution is growing into a "social monster" . It doesn't happen some claim, despite evidence to the contrary. However there are international syndicates and associations promoting child sex. One example is the North American Man Boy Lovers Association, (NAMBLA). They lobby for legal sex at the age of seven. Cults local and foreign grown have been exposed for systematically sexually abusing children. But the evidence is increasing that locals in the Philippines or Thailand use child prostitutes far more than foreigners. Efforts by the Philippine Department of Justice to arrest and prosecute offenders in any significant numbers is faltering . The damage to children caused by child prostitution may be small in comparison to the suffering caused by malnutrition, disease and neglect but even though they are the direct result of man made poverty few in government or society are held accountable. They are "unfortunate events" that are seen as "natural and unavoidable" even though they are not. But Child prostitution is a premeditated deliberate act to sexually exploit minors for personal pleasure or gain. Government inaction to protect children and prosecute offenders is criminal in itself and a violation of everything that we call civilized. It is a very emotive issue and cannot be lightly dismissed. It's an issue that makes people ask why? The answers are not simple but where it is wide spread so too is institutionally caused poverty and if we find the causes of that in a given society then we have found some answer to our question. While man-made poverty is not the only cause of child prostitution it is what drives children on to the streets hungry, uneducated, vulnerable and without choice or alternative. There is no social net to save them as they free-fall into degradation and sex-slavery. During my speaking engagements here in Japan I point out some of these roots of poverty and how the Japanese Government may be contributing to it rather than eradicating it. Eradicating poverty must begin at the village level not in the corporate boardrooms of the Philippine elite and Japanese multinational corporations. Billions are squandered on infrastructure projects planned by the elite for the elite, millions more are lost on kickbacks and corruption. The Japanese should listen to the poor and develop a response based on their needs not on what the banking barons or money moguls think is in the best interests of their family business. The foreign debt too is a major cause of the kind of poverty that begets child prostitution and other social evils. Power and wealth in the Philippines is exclusively held by the millionaire politicians, top military, landowners and business people who together with their relatives in government manipulate the system to their own advantage. They get behest loans, give bribes for contracts, evade taxes, swindle the government, buy positions and appoint their relatives to jobs. Few are investigated, tried or sentenced. Until that changes there can be no end to poverty and no development or progress. The debt piles up on the backs of the landless tenants and the urban slum dwellers. That is where most of the street children and child prostitutes come from. Child prostitution is just one of the many symptoms of a corrupt and sick society. This nation cannot take it's true place among the community of nations unless there is real land reform, social justice, respect for all rights, order and discipline. It's not the street children that need to be jailed but the crooks in high places.
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